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Develop a strategy
There is no requirement to have a clearly-stated strategy in running an agency.
Many agencies exist well enough without one.
But if you want to build a sustainably successful businesses that consistently achieves over the long-term — without the rollercoaster ride of spikes in growth followed by surprise fallow periods — it’s incredibly valuable to actively design what you are going to aim for, what you are going to do to go in that direction, and how you are going to do it.
Having a strategy puts you in control.
If things work consistently you know your strategy is good and you can confidently double down on it.
If you don’t gain traction, you know clearly what you were trying to do, and have a position you can examine and improve.
Discovering Strategy
You already have an agency that has been operating for some time. The likelihood is that your ideal strategy is hiding in plain sight, and will emerge from examining your existing response from your market.
Seeking to explore and discover your strategy from what reality is already telling you is far more effective than seeking to dream one up onto a blank piece of paper.
Research
When starting work on a strategy it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you need to act like some kind of business genius or MBA graduate who has all the answers.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Instead, a useful analogy for this work is to think of yourself as a detective.
Rather than having genius answers, you have great questions — seeking out the clues that will, eventually, lead you to understanding.
And those clues are less likely to come from direct answers than from spotting anomalies, seeing patterns, and making unexpected connections.
That means you have to be in listening mode. Opening up as many valuable threads of inquiry as possible. Taking great notes. And constantly revisiting them to sift for those clues as you learn more.